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Wagon Train to the Stars doesn't work so well on the big screen. The closest they got was probably Star Trek the Motion Picture....and that was kind of boring.

I don't know if they could pull off a non-adventure Star Trek that didn't have a big bad guy for a feature film. Nearly two hours for a exploration of the human condition film in space likely wouldn't sell tickets, not would they be able to justify the budget for the effects and actors. Something like "A Private Little War", "Return to Tomorrow", or "The Mark of Gideon" would probably not go over well in a theater. There are others that have more action and not a real big bad "The Enterprise Incident" or "A Piece of the Action" that were popular for one reason or another.

One of the most popular would be "City on the Edge of Forever", which is basically a love story. A tragic love story really.

And of course "The Trouble with Tribbles". They did manage to make Star Trek IV The Voyage Home a comedy film, so that is possible. It did sort of turn Mr. Scott into the comic relief instead of the wizard engineer he'd been before that who'd just as soon blast a Klingon than drink with him (though he might do that too).

I was fairly unimpressed with the first Abram's ST and I doubt it will change with the new one. As others have mentioned, Star Trek strengths lie in it's character driven nature of the TV shows, while the movies struggle to work as action flicks.

The obsession of Hollywood with darker versions of older material doesn't work either in my opinion. Star trek is one of the few sci-fi franchises with an optimistic view of the future. Scifi reflects the times in which it is created and for that reason I can't see a lighthearted optimistic but moralistic Trek like TNG be viable anytime soon.

I think it was better off as an AU rather than trying to attach itself to be main canon in such a forced and convoluted manner. Ultimately, the whole black hole thing was pretty retarded, even for Trek technobabble standards and there's been some really stupid shit already.

But I would say Trek does undermine itself in that manner. Instead of going all out, they make some quantum bullshit excuse instead of going with a more straightforward concept. (say this is another reality rather than some kind of temporal accident) This was more prevalent in Roddenberry Trek (In particular TNG) where it seemed like all human evil was the cause of some alien influence since humans can't be bad.

Because the way the Movie turns out, unless they completely hit the reset button on itself making it pointless-- it would undo pretty much every Trek series except Enterprise. And Enterprise was trash, so fuck that shit.

I think it was better off as an AU rather than trying to attach itself to be main canon in such a forced and convoluted manner. Ultimately, the whole black hole thing was pretty retarded, even for Trek technobabble standards and there's been some really stupid shit already.

I was under the impression that the new movie trilogy IS an alternate timeline

Judging by how things were even at the start, it seems like it really was an alternate timeline even in the beginning...only Spock comes from the original line. (basically too much is already different for this to be the original timeline even at Kirk's birth).

One suggestion I've heard is that the this can be an entirel different timeline, or this could be a new timeline that started in Star Trek: First Contact with Picard failing to clean up his mess. This results in Star Trek: Enterprise and possibly this version of Star Trek (as Archer is mentioned).

Though I would find it somewhat amusing if in one of these films, the Enterprise is eitehr destroyed or severly damaged, and at the end of the film, Kirk and crew are given a new ship, or their old one heavily refitted....and it looks nearly identical to the 1960s Enterprise. (since these films so far are still taking place in the late 2250s while the original series was the late 2260s).

There are so many ways to tuck away Abrams Trek. It could be side effect of the time war from Enterprise. Or a bad Holodeck novel.

I'd laugh myself silly if at the end of the third movie Riker and Troy would show up again and state it was a yet another scenario before Riker's court martial. That would be some nice meta trolling, any failed Trek project could end up with the Riker ending to get rid of it out of the original timeline.

Then again it could be the old it happened once and it will happen again. Like Turn A Gundam's Dark history (or BSG for that matter).

Still, it be amusing if they desided to slowly convert the new Trek into the old Trek to the point where you would have the scene from "The Trouble with Tribbles" where the Klingons are badmouthing the Enterprise as a "sagging, old, rust-bucket", even when it is only about ten years old under Captain Kirk's (Pine) command.

I think that's a big reason why it's hard to make Star Trek movies work on the big screen.

Or any movie in this area. Can't really blame the studios too much either. They have to make sure they get some kind of money back on their investment. Big action blockbusters without a dense story that requires people to think will at least rake in the cash. If Spock and Kirk aren't running from things and starships aren't exploring people are going to feel like they've wasted money, which is a shame.

I felt like Prometheus was at least getting back to science fiction and exploration on some level. Too bad it left viewers were more ambiguous questions and didn't really answer anything.

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Star Trek was never suited for the large screen, and most movies ended up being dumbed down wannabe action thrillers in space. I just feel it's a series that works better across a television series so you got to know the characters better. Trek is a character driven series, after all, and the original cast as portrayed in 2010 just don't seem like I'd get attached to them if any of them died.

I'm interested to know how the movies (the Trek ones, I assume) were watered down (from their respective shows) but aren't films of a TV series an extended episode that relies on the viewer being familiar with the characters? Though I'll admit I've only watched a little of TOS so I can't see the 2010 film as Star Trek: You Can (Not) Warp Travel.

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But I would say Trek does undermine itself in that manner. Instead of going all out, they make some quantum bullshit excuse instead of going with a more straightforward concept. (say this is another reality rather than some kind of temporal accident) This was more prevalent in Roddenberry Trek (In particular TNG) where it seemed like all human evil was the cause of some alien influence since humans can't be bad.

I recall maybe one or two antagonistic races in the Klingons for TOS and the Romulans in TNG. I could mention Q but he screwed everyone over when he got the chance and The Borg could be mostly assimilated humans for all we knew.

The only movie that was really gratuitous was Generations. HEY GAIZ KIRK AND PICARD IN T3H SAME MOVIE!!1 DATA CURSING! (but I think its shamelessness was part of the charm)

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I'm interested to know how the movies (the Trek ones, I assume) were watered down (from their respective shows) but aren't films of a TV series an extended episode that relies on the viewer being familiar with the characters? Though I'll admit I've only watched a little of TOS so I can't see the 2010 film as Star Trek: You Can (Not) Warp Travel.

Well that's the thing, an extended episode isn't particularly good for the movie format. The obvious thing is the focus on cast, where only several characters got focused on. Star Trek, while not particularly deep, is frequently about humanity discovering new ways life can survive and humanity overcoming challenges. But while encountering pertinent contemporary social and philosophical issues makes sense in a series of progression, you really end up focusing on PEW PEW PEW to cater to moviegoing audience. And since Star Trek isn't really about pew pew pew, lack of familiarty with the characters will hurt.

Let's go over each one of the Star Trek Movies

Spoiler:

Star Trek I-- is the ultimate extended episode and tried to go off on some things about ascending physical existence. It was boring, useless for non-trek fans and came off as a lousy 2001 ripoff. So they went for more excitement in the next.

II-- Is widely considered the best movie. It took an existing adversary and drove up the conflict. As it goes after concepts of hate and sacrifice, it was easy to appeal to audiences even if there wasn't much action. It was thoughtful. Well there was some action, but it's more subtle, and is more suited to a thriller and building up tension rather then for the sake of shit exploding.

III- Was outright mindless, but the action heavy scenes and humor helped the series through, it's mostly running off the success of II

IV- Is probably the most lighthearted one, and unique in the aspect. But as I've noted, it took the build up of the last movies to get this kind of suspension of disbelief. And of course, environmentalism is always funny too.

V- Is trash

VI- Falls under the same style of II. It has Shakespearean aspects and actaully addressed a valuable contemporary issue about fear of change. This is my personal favorite since it covers so much in a short time frame.

VII- The start of the Next Generation movies, with a focus on more hollywood style action and cliffhanger scenes. But the TNG cast is just not suited for that kind of shit. Picard beaming down to directly fight with the bad guy is not only unbelievable, but also silly. Of course there were more fancy explosions and shit, but it also has one of the most retarded battles of all time, and the emasculation of Riker would become a recurring theme, sans the next movie.

Where was the plot to this? Nope, ITS KIRK. We don't need a plot.

VIII-- Running along side Voyager and DS9, this is where a high priority on PEW PEW PEW comes in. Its counterpart shows would also feature bigger budget battles and it worked quite well. Unfortunately this is also where the franchise gets too reliant on this thing. IMO, this is the only good TNG movie, where much like II, the Wrath of Khan, it draws into an easily accessible inner conflict with the main character that makes the thing riveting without requiring prior knowledge. It was cheesy enough to make the TNG cast come across as action heroes, almost.

IX- I have no idea why this movie exists, except to emasculate Riker even further and random fanservice. This is where the cast starts aging and them engaging in fights just seems ridiculous. And once again the Captain goes rambo into the bad guys. Hah... right.

X- Janeway becoming Admiral was the least bad part about the movie. This movie is also trash and relied completely on PEW PEW PEW. Except someone decided the Enterprise only had a dozen torpedoes so the fights weren't even good.

My point is that there's been a trend to try and make the franchise look cool at the expense of everything else, including storytelling. It has worked, of course, but it's clear that the writing has been getting progressively worse. The ones that do capture the spirit of the series just might not work well today, without some truly inspired writing like that of II or VI that would pave the way for its inferior brethren to make more money and at least be entertaining.

At least they do understand ToS makes a better cast, however... it is truly drawing blood from a stone in some cases. But especially with the TNG movies, they failed to capture what the show was about, and it was not just about Picard and Data doing singing routines.

Ultimately, I just found the older movies easier to watch as standalone.

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I recall maybe one or two antagonistic races in the Klingons for TOS and the Romulans in TNG. I could mention Q but he screwed everyone over when he got the chance and The Borg could be mostly assimilated humans for all we knew.

And early TNG/TOS often had that perception that those other races are evil and had much to learn from humans. It got obnoxious.

The first 3 seasons? Kinda. But thanks to Manny Coto becoming the series showrunner for the 4th season, things started to get better there (or so the general consensus is). Infamous ep-22 notwithstanding, of course.

Then again, anyone who wasn't watching ENT for T'Pol + Hoshi is a fool.

The first 3 seasons? Kinda. But thanks to Manny Coto becoming the series showrunner for the 4th season, things started to get better there (or so the general consensus is). Infamous ep-22 notwithstanding, of course.

Then again, anyone who wasn't watching ENT for T'Pol + Hoshi is a fool.

Enterprise had a lot of potential but the temporal cold war and the Xindi fiasco sucked the life out of it. If only they had stuck the the core concept of exploration and the formation of the Federation instead of mucking about with time travel.

I didn't like the first Star Trek movie at all, doubt I will enjoy this one either but I do want to see it for Benedict Cumberbatch.

I can say a few things movies based on television series are rarely good. Some things are just better fit for a smaller screen (even though TV is becoming more cinematic these days in some senses). When you move TV series to the big screen, producers try to compensate by making it bigger and more exciting but sometimes that loses the soul of what made the original so great.

I am not the biggest star trek fan but the best episode of the series were just great stand alone stories. Even though Star Trek had continuous cast and some continuous storylines, I think the best TV sci-fi just told really wonderful short stories (my favorite being the Twilight Zone).

Of course you can still have a really well told sci-fi story in a movie but I think sadly a small sci-fi movie tends to be ignored by the masses and the critics for the most part so instead you get the blockbuster sci-fi at least winning on one front. But I prefer those smaller movies myself.

The Birth of the Federation and the Romulan War were what people signed on for. They only got a little taste of those during the run.

Though the Mirror Universe episodes were awesome (also 4th season).

There is speculation that the new Star Trek films still have Enterprise as part of its in universe canon. The temporal messups of he various other series and the events of Enterprise culminating in serious changes to Star Fleet were they start building bigger ships and have a different (though similar) technology from the Prime universe. Particularly the new warp drives. In Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Mr. Scott states that they could get to Vulcan in four days (this is assumed to mean quickly via the new more powerful warp engines rather than the time it would take them to do a proper shakedown cruise), in Star Trek (2009) Star Fleet gets to Vulcan in less than one shift change (less than 8 hours maximum). Vulcan is usually thought of as either 40 Eridani or perhaps Vega in the new Trek. That is 16 to 25 light years distance depending on the star used. By the old charts, 4 days would be something like Warp 12 or TNG warp 9.5-ish area. One shift change would be the speed of subspace radio (TNG warp 9.9999 or old Trek warp factor 30).